Biosensors are devices for sensing and detecting biomolecules and operate on the basis of electronic, electrochemical, optical, and/or mechanical detection principles. Biosensors can sense charges, photons, and mechanical properties of bio-entities or biomolecules, or through molecular tags. The detection can be performed by detecting the bio-entities or biomolecules themselves, or through interaction and reaction between specified reactants and bio-entities/biomolecules. Such biosensors can be manufactured using semiconductor processes, and can be easily applied to integrated circuits (ICs) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
Biochips are essentially miniaturized laboratories that can perform hundreds or thousands of simultaneous biochemical reactions, such as polymerase-chain reactions (PCR) including solid phase/bridge amplification. Biochips can detect particular biomolecules, measure their properties, process the signal, and may even analyze the data directly. Biochips enable researchers to quickly screen large numbers of biological analytes for a variety of purposes, from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents. Advanced biochips use a number of biosensors along with fluidic channels to integrate reaction, sensing, and sample management. While biochips are advantageous in many respects, challenges in their fabrication and/or operation arise, for example, due to compatibility issues between the semiconductor fabrication processes, the biological applications, and restrictions and/or limits on the semiconductor fabrication processes.